(CLASSROOM ACTION RESEARCH) Reading Comprehension

Through SQRW
PROPOSAL
(CLASSROOM ACTION RESEARCH)

: Improving the Achievement of the Second Years Students of SMP Negeri 2

Tegallalang in Reading Comprehension Through SQRW in Academic Year 2009/2010.

2. Introduction :
Reading comprehension is an essential skill for learners of English. For most of
learners it is the most important skill to master in order to ensure success in learning. With
strengthened reading skills, learners of English tend to make greater progress in other areas
of language learning. Reading should be an active, fluent process that involves the reader
and the reading material in building meaning.
Teaching students how to utilize the skills and knowledge they bring from their first
language, develop vocabulary skills, improve reading comprehension and rate, and monitor
students’ improvement are just some of the elements that teachers must consider in
preparing for an English language reading class. Learning to read in a second or foreign
language is a process that involves learning skills, learning new vocabulary and patterns, and
cultivating the ability to transfer skills from the classroom to the real world, where English
may be used.
In Indonesia, English has been taught as a foreign language both as local current
subject for elementary school students and as compulsory subject for junior and senior high
school students. The 2006 School Based Curriculum or Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan,
KTSP, gives opportunity for every school to develop their own curriculum that taking account
the standards designed by the government. According to the 2006 curriculum or KTSP,
student of English are expected to master in language skills namely listening, speaking,
reading, writing and to have communicative competence in using it. Having communicative
competence means students have competencies in understanding and producing discourse
in spoken and written under meaningful context which influenced by situation and culture.
The basic competency of reading skill mentioned in KTSP of SMP for the second year
students is to comprehend transactional discourse and dialogue leading to interpersonal
meaning and/or oral monologue in the forms of descriptive, narrative, recount, and report.
The achievement indicator the students must gain is being competent in the sub reading
skill, including comprehending main idea, specific information, word meaning and textual
reference of the text.
However, the thing that many students find difficulties in reading activity is to
comprehend or understanding the information of the reading material. The fact of the
students’ problem in comprehending reading text above also become the problem
encountered by the second year students of SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang. Almost student have
a problem in comprehending reading text, in the four reading sub skills. The reading class is
bored them because of the English teacher in teaching reading only involve tasks in the text
book, read the text, and answer the questions following the text.
In line with the above reality, it is important to take a consideration in order to solve
the problem and to improve the students’ achievement in reading comprehension. One thing
 that must be taken into account is the strategy in teaching reading. The strategy will use in
this study call SQRW, a Reading strategy mostly used in reading books.
The writer conduct this study for the purpose of improving the second year students in
reading comprehension, especially in comprehending main idea, specific information, word
meaning and textual reference of a text using SQRW.

2.1. Statement of the Problem

2.1.1. Major Problem

Could SQRW strategy improve the second year students of SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang in
comprehending reading text?

2.1.2. Minor Problem

1) Could SQRW strategy improve the achievement of the second year students of SMP Negeri 2
Tegallalang in finding out the main idea of reading text?
2) Could SQRW strategy improve the achievement of the second year students of SMP Negeri 2
Tegallalang in finding out the specific information of reading text?
3) Could SQRW strategy improve the achievement of the second year students of SMP Negeri 2
Tegallalang in finding out the word meaning of reading text?
4) Could SQRW strategy improve the achievement of the second year students of SMP Negeri 2
Tegallalang in finding out the textual referent of reading text?

2.2. Objective of the Study

2.2.1. Major Objective
The major objective of the study is to improve the achievement of the second year
students of SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang in comprehending reading text through SQRW strategy.

2.2.2. Minor Objective

The minor objective of the study is:
1) to improve the achievement of the second year students of SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang in
finding out the main idea of reading text through SQRW strategy.
2) to improve the achievement of the second year students of SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang in
finding out the specific information of reading text through SQRW strategy.
3) to improve the achievement of the second year students of SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang in
finding out the word meaning of reading text through SQRW strategy.
4) to improve the achievement of the second year students of SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang in
finding out the textual referent of reading text through SQRW strategy.

2.3. Scope of the Study

This study is focus on finding out if the SQRW strategy could improve the students’
achievement on reading comprehension, especially on the four sub reading skills, or not. The
genre of the reading text will use in this study is in the form of narrative and is limited to the
class A of the second year students of SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang in academic year 2009/2010

2.4. Hypothesis
The hypothesis of the study is that SQRW strategy could improve the achievement of
second year students in class A of SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang in comprehending reading text,
 especially in finding out the main idea, specific information, word meaning and textual
referent.

2.5. Definition of Key Term.

2.5.1. Achievement
Achievement is defined as the act of achieving or something achieved especially by great
effort or persistence quoted by Merriam-Webster, in Juniari (2003:6). Achievement in this
study is something that is achieve at the end of a lesson using a test. In other words, it refers
to the scores the students gain in the test of reading comprehension.

2.5.2. Reading Comprehension

Gillet and Temple in Juniari (2003:8) stated that reading comprehension is a search
for meaning, actively using our word knowledge and the text to understand new things we
read. We need knowledge of the world to understand new things, need to be familiar with
various text structure encountered and need to be active in seeking meaning to rise up from
the passage.

2.5.3. Narrative reading text

According to Tonjes, et al. (1990), as citied in http://cps.uswp.edu/courses/
EDUC310/Texstruct/narrativetextnarrative text is the text used to entertain, to tell a story, or
to provide as aesthetic literary experience. They also said that narrative text is based on life
experience and is person-oriented using dialogue and familiar language.

2.5.4. SQRW Strategy

SQRW is a four-step strategy for reading and taking notes from chapters in a textbook. Each
letter stands for one step in the strategy. Using SQRW will help you to understand what you
read and to prepare a written record of what you learned. The written record will be valuable
when you have to participate in a class discussion and again when you study for a test. It is
an effective reading process, related to some techniques that usually help the readers not
only to enjoy their reading but also to read and remember the main point.

3. Review of Related Literature

3.1. Reading Comprehension

Comprehension, a complex cognitive process, is central to acquiring a new linguistic
system. Input must be decoded in some comprehensible fashion for second language
acquisition to occur. In the case of a foreign language reading comprehension, the reader
uses previous knowledge to construct and integrate meaning from text. During reading there
is simultaneous cognitive processing involving pattern recognition, letter identification,
lexical access, concept activation, syntactic analysis, propositional encoding, sentence
comprehension, activation of prior knowledge, information storage, and comprehension
monitoring. According to connectionist models (e.g., Koda, 2005, 2007; Nassaji, 2002.
in Diana Pulido and David Z. Hambrick) the generic knowledge structures, or background
knowledge, that are accessed during reading are largely determined by the quality of the text
base that the learner constructs. Text base quality is affected by the individual’s text
 processing efficiency (i.e., ability in lower-level processes, such as word recognition and
syntactic parsing) and working memory.
Gillet and Temple in Juniari (2003:9) stated that reading comprehension is a search
for meaning, actively using our word knowledge and the text to understand new things we
read. We need knowledge of the world to understand new things, need to be familiar with
various text structure encountered and need to be active in seeking meaning to rise up from
the passage.
Simanjutak (1998), as citied in Raharja (2004:9), agreed on reading as a cognitive
process of making interaction with print and monitoring comprehension to establish meaning
which involves the process of identification (the ability of the reader to identify or determine
what the text says) and the process of interpretation (the readers’ activity to make sense or
to draw out the meaning of the reading text they read).
Reading comprehension is process of understanding written text or information
presented by the author and affected by many factors. Those are factors within the readers,
factor within the written message, and factors within the reading environment (Pearson
Johnson, in Gipe (1991:156).
Comprehension processes and second language acquisition processes, although
somewhat overlapping, are also distinct. For example, comprehension involves constructing
a mental representation from the propositional content for the purpose of understanding the
message. However, in order for a linguistic system to be developed through comprehension
activities, additional input processing must occur. Such processing entails making form-
meaning connections from the input, or focusing attention on new forms and associating
them with their functions or referents.

3.2. Narrative Text

Depdiknas (2003:80) stated that narrative text learned by the students of junior high
school related with problematic events whose social function are to amuse, entertain, and
deal with actual or vicarious experience in different ways.
Narrative text is reading for story. It is often called fiction in which the values are used
to describe, explain human behavior (citied in http;//www.ksde.org/outcomes/texttype.doc).
Meanwhile, Tonjes, et al. (1990), as citied in http;//cps.uswp.edu/courses
/EDUC310/textstruct/narrative.asp, stated that narrative text is the text used to entertain, to
tell a story, or to provide as aesthetic literary experience. They also said that narrative text
is based on life experience and is person oriented using dialogue and familiar language.

3.3. SQRW
SQRW, it might sound sort of complex but its actually quite simple and straight
forward. SQRW is a four-step strategy for reading and taking notes from chapters in a
textbook. SQRW is a four-step strategy for reading and taking notes from textbooks that will
help you better prepare for exams, better prepare for class discussion, improve your reading
comprehension and help you learn better using textbooks. SQRW stands for Survey, Question,
Read and Write.

ey : The first step in the SQRW reading strategy is Survey. Before you actually start reading a
chapter you first survey the chapter. You read the chapter title, introduction, headings and
the summary or conclusion at the end of the chapter. When you survey you should also
review any pictures, graphs, maps, or tables in the chapter and the caption (text explanation
 that goes with each). The purpose of surveying the chapter is to quickly learn what the
chapter is about before reading it in its entirety.

stion : The second step in the SQRW reading strategy is to ask questions as your read. Questions
help you to focus and give your reading purpose. Instead of simply reading without purpose
now you are searching for useful, applicable information. Use each chapter heading to
develop questions for that chapter. For example, for chapter titled “Housing Training Dogs”
you might develop the question “How many ways are there to house train a dog?” or “What is
involved in house training a dog?” If a chapter heading contains several ideas you may want
to form a question for each idea. Always remember to use the chapter headings to develop
questions – don’t use the conclusion, summary, introduction or the text to develop your
questions.

d : The R in the SQRW stands for Read and represents the third step in the SQRW reading
strategy. Once you’ve surveyed the chapter and developed questions based on the chapter
titles you should then read the information contained in the chapter to answer the questions
you developed. As you read the chapter in an attempt to answer the questions you developed
you may find it necessary to modify your question(s) or you may think of more questions that
need to be answered. Make sure to focus as you read and take time to thoroughly answer
each question you develop.

e : The final step in the SQRW reading strategy for reading textbooks is Write. Make sure
to write each of the questions you form along with its answer in a notebook. After you’ve
written down each question as well as the answer to each question review each question
again to make sure you have completely answered the question.

3.4. Empirical Review

SQRW strategy is a strategy used in teaching reading which is based on the strategies
the good readers use when they are reading.
There were other strategies with the same basis had been empirically tested by some
researchers of IKIP Negeri Singaraja. One of them is called SQ3R which stands for Survey,
Question, Read, Recite, and Review. Putri (2002), as one of the researchers, conducted a
study for the purpose of improving the students’ ability in reading comprehension through
SQ3R strategy. Her study showed that the strategy could improve the students’ ability in
reading comprehension. It could be seen from the mean score of the achievement test
conducted in every cycle which showed gradual improvement.
SQRW and SQ3R are similar. Both of them devote the students to survey or preview the
title and introductory paragraph of the text, read, answer the questions, identify the
important information and summarize the information in ones’ own words
The second strategy is PARTS strategy which was conducted by Juniari (2005). The
purpose of his study was to improve the first year students’ reading comprehension through
the strategy. The result indicate that PARTS strategy provided guidance and advantages to
help the students in comprehending reading text. PARTS as well as SQRW strategy similarly
ask the students to do preview activity, answer the questions, read the text and also rewrite
or recreate text.
4. Research Methodology

4.1. Subjects
The subject of the study is the second year students of SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang in
academic year 2009/2010, especially class VIIA. The subject consists of 40 students, 23 male
and 18 females.

4.2. Research Design

The researcher implemented a classroom action research. Carr and Kemmis
stated “Classroom Action Research is a form of self-reflective inquiry undertaken by
participants in social (including educational) situation in order to improve the rationality and
justice of (a) their own social or educational practices, (b) their understanding of these
practices, and (c) the situation in which practices are carried out.” (McNiff, 1988, in
Sandiani, 2005:6),
Classroom action research is conducted in cyclic process, involving the process of
planning, action, observation and reflection (Kemmis and Taggart, 1998:10). This action
research was conduct to the second year students of SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang by
implementing cycles. The cycle could be figure out as follows.
 4.3. Research Instrument
Some instruments use to obtain the data are:
1) Reading task
Reading tasks are used in each session during the action of the cycle.
2) Test
There are two kinds of test administered in this study, those are pre-test and post-test. The
pre-test is conducted to see the problems faced by the students. The post-test is conducted
at the end of each cycle to find the students’ improvement in reading skill.

3) Teacher’s diary
Teacher’s diary is designed in the form of unstructured observation sheet. It is used to
identify extra finding, like students’ behavior and attitude during the teaching learning
process.

4) Questionnaires
Questionnaires are conducted when the post-test are administrated to the students. The
purpose is to see the students’ opinion as well as their feeling during the teaching learning
activity.

w
An informal interview is conducted to see the students’ opinion to the way they usually
do in reading class.

4.4. Research Procedure

This present study conducts in order to improve students’ ability in reading
comprehension through SQRW strategy to encourage them to read and feel confident about
their ability to understand written text. Due to the aim of this study, an action-based
research, is the one that proposed by Kemmis and Taggart (1998, in Sandiani, 2005:14).

1). Pre-test
The researcher observes the students’ attitude and behaviors toward the test given during
the pre-test. This pre observation was conducted in order to find out whether they find any
difficulties or not. Based on the result of the pre-test and the pre observation, the researcher
then decide whether to stop or continue this study and conducting a treatment by applying
SQRW (Survey, Question, Read, Respond, Review and reflect)strategy in teaching learning
reading.
2). Cycle
 The treatment is going to be conducted in cyclic process and the cycle consists of three
meetings. The cycle is started with reflection. Based on the result of that reflection, then
making a plan, action and observation, evaluation and get reflection again the action before
based on the result of the observation the evaluation.
The action procedure that will be implemented in this study as follows:
 Planning :
o Making a teaching scenario for each meeting.
o Preparing the reading material will be used in the exercise and post test.
o Preparing the teaching media (pictures, photos and slides)
o Preparing the work sheet.
o Preparing the test.
o Preparing the observation instruments ( teacher’s diary and questionnaire)

 Action :
Steps in the teaching and learning process
o Pre-activity
gement (gives short brainstorming related to the topic for focusing the students’ attention).
o whilst-activity
- Exploration (giving student a chance to train)
Elaboration (giving a challenge to reinforce the student to enlarge their knowledge)
Confirmation (to generalize the material learned : sentence pattern, phrases, new words)
o Post-activity
- Assessment

Based on the action procedures above, the researcher can construct a teaching
scenario as follows:

ACTIVITIES TIME
AIM INTERACTION
TEACHER STUDENTS ALLOTMENT
Pre-activity.
1. greets the
1. Responding  To get the T - Ss
students. 5 min
greeting students ready for Ss -T
the class
2. check the
2. Listening and
students responding
attendant

3. check the
3. Prepare their
students stationeries
readiness for the
class.

- Look at the  To generate T - Ss 10 min

4. Showing picture. students’ interest Ss -T
pictures related - Talk about the
to the text picture
prepared and
write the title of
the text prepared
to use in reading
class
5. Ask the students 5. predict what the
 ACTIVITIES TIME
AIM INTERACTION
TEACHER STUDENTS ALLOTMENT
text telling  To predict topic
about.  To create an T - Ss
interest on the Ss -T
topic and content
 To relate topic
with Ss’ Prior
knowledge.
to predict what the
text is going to tell
6. answer the
about.  To give an
questions orally T - Ss
awareness of
nature and Ss -T
structure of text

Whilst-activity
7. Distributing the
7. take the text T – Ss 65 min
reading text to
students with the
question list.

8. check the
students
understanding of
the questions 8. Ask if they don’t To train Ss to see T - Ss
understand the their purpose of Ss -T
9. Read the text. questions yet. reading

9. Listening to the
10. Read the text for teacher
the second time. T - Ss
 To train Ss’
10. Repeat after the
listening skill
11. Ask the students teacher
to read the text
 To train Ss for the T - Ss
and note the
pronunciation
difficult words,
11. Read the text
phrases. silently and note
the difficult  To integrate
words, phrases reading with
they did not speaking and note
12. ask the students T - Ss
understand. keeping
to answer the Ss - Ss
questions
individually. 12. Answer the  To scan and skim
questions for meaning

13. ask the students

to check their  To train Ss get
answers with information from
their neighbors. text. individually
 To integrate
13. Check their reading with
answer with their writing.
14. check the neighbors.
answers together
orally  To train Ss to
share their
opinions or ideas.
Ss - Ss
14. answer the
 ACTIVITIES TIME
AIM INTERACTION
TEACHER STUDENTS ALLOTMENT
question orally
and making
15. Scoring their some corrections
answers. to their work if
there are any  To integrate
mistakes. reading with
speaking and
writing.
15. Write the score T - Ss
16. Submitting the they get on their Ss -T
students’ work worksheets.
sheets.
16. Submitting the
17. Conducting post work sheets.
test at the end of
 To train Ss to be
this cycle. 17. take the test fair

individually

T - Ss
Ss -T

T - Ss
Ss –T
Post activity Individually 20 min
18. Giving students
18. Doing the task
enough time to  To measure the
do the task. students’ ability in
reading skill
19. Asking them to
check answers 19. Check the
by themselves. answer by
themselves
20. Submitting the
students’ work
sheets. 20. Submitting the
worksheet
21. Check the  To integrate T - Ss
answers together reading with Ss -T
21. Answer the
with the students speaking
question orally
22. Giving a chance
to the students to
ask some
22. Asking some
questions questions if there
are any
23. Asking the difficulties.
students whether
they like the way
they have in the23. Expressing their
reading class or opinions about
not. the teaching
learning process
 ACTIVITIES TIME
AIM INTERACTION
TEACHER STUDENTS ALLOTMENT
24. Summarizing the they have
lesson.
24. Making some
25. Teacher says notes
farewell to the
students. 25. Saying thank
you and good
bye.

 Observation :
o To note the class situation during the activity, the teacher uses the teacher’s diary.
o The questionnaire is given to find out their attitude toward the strategy used.
o The result of post test is used to measure the weakness of the strategy used.
o Comparing the result of the pre-test and the post-test in order to know whether there is an
improvement of the students’ ability in reading comprehension through the use of SQRW
strategy.
 Reflections :
o Analyzing the first meeting with steps of planning, action and the observation in order to decide
whether to continue the investigation by conducting other cycle or stop.

4.5. Data Analysis

The data analyze based on the result of the pre-test and the post-test

conducted. It is analyzed in descriptive analysis.

1) Questionnaires, teacher’s diary and interview result are analyzed in qualitative descriptive.
2) The interval data are analyzed in quantitative descriptive, based on the students’ production
of correct answers. Descriptive analysis means that the researcher notes score of the
students in term of the number of correct answer as well as the mean scores of the whole
students in pre-test and the post-test in the cycle conducted. The score of each reading sub
skill, finding out the main idea, finding out the specific information, finding out the word
meaning and finding out the textual referent, will be calculated using the following formula :